[wobbleblob]

Here's how I look at it. It's not the decimal number of years since your birth, but the phase in your life that closes doors.

In tech, you constantly need to keep up to date on the latest technologies, read publications and go to conferences, because experience gets stale very fast. It's also easier (than in fields like medicine or law) for junior techies to get up to speed in experience, because they can skip the decades of now obsolete tech and fast forward to roughly where you are at. This is fine. It can be fun and it's definitely rewarding.

Then by your early thirties, three things change at the same time: you get promoted to a busier, more responsible position, you have small kids, and you get fat. The (waking) time you have for yourself shrinks from 8-10 hrs to about an hour if you're lucky. You can use that hour to study and keep up to date, to do something about that gut and exercise, or you're so tired you just want to relax. Pick one.

In my opinion, this is why middle aged people seem so lazy and boring.

[vidarh]

Or you prioritize exercise, and keep your energy levels up. I'm 38. My pace now is higher than it was since I was 20, despite a 4 year old son.

The big difference is for the last 8 years I've put in 3-5 hours of hard exercise (powerlifting) every week before work. I wish I had more time, both for exercise and projects, but these days I can pull all nighters and walk into the gym 7am the following morning and set new personal records a couple of times a week, and keep my energy up all day, whereas at 30 I was worn down to the point where I couldn't walk up a flight of stairs without my knees hurting, and would collapse on the sofa in the evening and not have energy for anything.

Now I am in better shape than most of the kids half my age at my gym, and have early 20's body builders talking about how deep I can squat.

And I go home after work, play with my son, and put in time on my projects after he's in bed.

Sure, I had downtime when my son was smaller, but kids are not an excuse for all that long - when he was younger, I put projects aside and my only "me time" was focused on keeping fit, and I feel it paid off. Now, every day, he can do more stuff for himself, and wants to, and every new achievement means more energy left over for me.

[zeidrich]

I think that's the real thing.

People sort into two bins: Those who make choices, and those who make excuses.

I think it's often the people who think that they should have already won the prize that end up in the latter category. So they spend their time rationalizing why they haven't gotten there, or what is holding them back.

I've realized that there's no prize to win, there's no time limit, and that I can learn new things far more quickly than I could when I was younger. Instead of making excuses, or living in awe of past accomplishments, I just do new things. I take new notes. I learn new languages. I got a keyboard last month, and I started studying music theory and writing some compositions, and I play along with my baby on my knee, trying to play in whatever key it sounds like she's banging her hands on.

Some people complain that chores are hard with a baby. I challenge myself to do the chores one-handed with her held on my hip when she needs to be held. She loves the experience, I get extra exercise, and the chores get done, and I spend time with her, and it's kind of fun to figure out how to do certain things that you expect to have 2 hands for with only one.

I'm no superman, and I don't try to be. I do get to slow down, but I do it without regret.

I try to spend the time that other people take regretting the things that they can't or didn't do to do the things I want to do.

[thenomad]

I've had a similar experience. I gave up working late around 30, when I found it wiped me out too much. Now I'm 36 and I've discovered I can do 12-hour days again.

Why? Better diet (Paleo) and daily exercise. Bodyweight and Pilates, in my case, but I'm planning to try powerlifting at some point. (I remain convinced that mind-body exercise like T'ai Chi, Pilates or yoga are one of the best body hacks out there. )

For some additional "Old Guy" inspiration, here's Joe Pilates, the inventor of Pilates, at 51 and 82. He, erm, doesn't exactly look it: http://www.vivianzapanta.com/look-at-joseph-pilates-age-51-a...

[rzt]

I totally, absolutely agree. Once you give up exercise, it goes downhill fast: mentally, spiritually, and of course, physically.

The morning is the best time to take care of the body. I am a cyclist and I love nothing more than to wake up early (well, somewhat early) and getting in an hour-of-power before breakfast, coffee, and work. I start the day off right and by the end of the day, I feel naturally tired instead of run down (there is a difference).

[philbarr]

I've heard this before about exercise. But exercise really tires my brain out - it feels like I can't think at all, like all my effort has gone and I'm just lathargic.

I'm not saying exercise is bad, and I do try and keep up with it, but am I the only one that has to think, "I can't exercise now or else I'll be too tired to code later."?

[nouveaux]

If I had to guess, you're exercising too hard. Try 10% of what your routine is and then put in some code. Increase it slowly.

The right exercise regiment is important. There's no need to push yourself hard the first three months if you're starting out. Try a couch to 5k run routine over six months.

[xr09]

Superman? Please stop messing with us poor geeks. ;)

[jes5199]

the "latest technologies" thing is questionable. A COBOL programmer can still charge the highest hourly rate of anyone in the industry, because surviving COBOL programs must be very valuable (or else they would have been replaced.)

In the world where App Academy and the like are churning out iPhone developers, Ruby on Rails programmers, and Javascript (uh, what's the word for person who works in JS?.... ) advocates in eight to twelve weeks doesn't make those sound like skills to hone to get your long-term stability.

Personally, I keep being surprised by how much value there is in just remembering how tech worked in the 1990s and even the early 2000s - Windows and OSX and Linux have changed a lot and iOS and Android seem completely new - but a lot of platform decisions evolved gradually in the changing technical context, and throwback behaviors can seem completely mysterious to someone who's first programming environment was XCode - there's still DOS behaviors hidden in some of these places! I wouldn't be surprised if ye olde mainframe experts had some even subtler knowledge about how-things-really-work-under-there than I do.

[wobbleblob]

A phrase like 'Surviving Cobol programs' suggests you have the wrong idea. The idea that there is dinosaur code from the 1960's still chugging along, and occasionally in need of emergency repair by a highly paid grey haired wizard is a myth. There is still some demand for Cobol programmers because new projects are still being written in Cobol. You'd be surprised about their age as well. Often by smaller to medium sized shops, because they lack the resources to change course and retrain or replace everyone, like the big companies did.

[jes5199]

huh! I've met legacy Cobol maintainers, but I haven't heard of any companies doing new development in it. Do you have links? I'm super-curious to find out more.

[digitalsushi]

I believe (not through science, but just to make my world make sense) that time spent on exercising doesn't count against the wall-clock. I tell myself that every hour in the gym is an hour longer I'll live, and all the idle thoughts I have while I am in there are a consolation prize for suffering. It helps get me into the gym. It's petty but it is enough.

[vidarh]

Agreed. I feel more energized and motivated when I leave the gym, and my energy levels are vastly higher now at 38 than they were when I started exercising properly at 30.

And there's other things, like how at 30 I had totally lost the ability to squat down unaided - I had to prop myself up with a hand, and now I like to drop down and sit in squat position just because I enjoy the feeling of my newfound strength and mobility... I don't dare think about how drained I'd be from just short amounts of playtime with my son if I didn't exercise regularly.

Exercise is an answer to too little time, not a problem.

[thenomad]

Heh, I have a similar experience. I couldn't touch my toes for years - now I actively enjoy bending straight down from the waist to pick things up off the floor!

[xr09]

Dude, please don't do that in prison.